Bridging the gap: How a Windsor artist and her Ithaca grandson's life fuel their artistry

In addition to co-founding Cooperative Gallery 213, Peg Johnston helps coordinate the installation of several works of public art around Binghamton. Here are just a few of her installations.
Maggie Gilroy / Staff Video

"Shake"(Photo: Zaccharie Charvolin)

Story Highlights

An artist and his grandmother team up for art show

"Generation Bridge" is housed at Cooperative Gallery 213 on State Street

Inside Cooperative Gallery 213 on a steamy summer day in downtown Binghamton, Zaccharie Charvolin faces a series of his photo montage pieces on the wall. A collection of his grandmother's artwork hangs opposite.

They work in different media — Charvolin's grandmother, Kit Burnham-Ashman, 75, is a member at the gallery and primarily works with oil paints — but the 21-year-old graphic design student at SUNY Cortland can trace his earliest artistic experiences to his grandmother's house, and she shares his passion for studying life's ups and downs.

Charvolin has a type of muscular dystrophy, a genetic disorder characterized by progressive muscle degeneration and weakness, according to the Muscular Dystrophy Association. He has used a wheelchair since he was 12 and has found catharsis through photography, particularly during the winter months, when he says he feels the most confined.

As a child, Charvolin remembers sharing the car ride from his home in Ithaca with Burnham-Ashman to her house in Windsor, sitting in the soft-cushioned seat of her Toyota 4Runner while they traverse the Central New York countryside.

"I remember riding in the car on the way there thinking, 'We're going to my favorite place in the world," he said.

It was at that sprawling property overlooking the valley where Charvolin and his cousins would swim and play downstairs in the play area, as well as where his grandmother would unintentionally introduce him to art.

Is creativity inherited?

Burham-Ashman has carried a lifelong interest in dance and music, her children work in graphic design, practice yoga, or paint and, after she retired from work as a psychotherapist in 2008, she started oil painting.

Quickly her Windsor home filled with art supplies and Charvolin started testing his hand at drawing and painting, "like a kid does, not thinking anything would come of it."

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The work of Kit Burnham-Ashman, right, and her grandson, Zaccharie Charvolin, is on display through July 27.(Photo: KATIE SULLIVAN BORRELLI / Staff Photo)

Not a serious pursuit at the time, but the exposure, along with his grandmother's passion, proved art was an option to pursue.

"You're definitely a strong inspiration for why I do artwork," Charvolin says to his grandmother during a recent interview.

Years later, for a black-and-white photography course required for his filmmaking associate's degree, a professor built Charvolin a wooden tripod to attach to the arms of his wheelchair.

Charvolin bought a digital camera that summer and threw himself into the world of digital photography and composition.

"I liked taking different pieces and putting them together," he said.

How to bridge the generation gap

He's used his mother's yoga studio and his bedroom as studio spaces for photo shoots with models, photos he uses to create digital photographic montages with the human figure and other photographs.

"Transitions" by Kit Burnham-Ashman(Photo: Burnham-Ashman)

In her studio above her garage, Burnham-Ashman has spent time painting and drawing from a live model, even creating a series of charcoal drawings of the figure called "Sunday Mornings."

"We both have an understanding of life that's not just on the surface," she said, "and using art to work through things."

For their joint showing, called "Generation Bridge," Burnham-Ashman's oil paintings as well as print work — she's started creating prints at Equinox Press in Endicott — line one long wall of Cooperative Gallery 213, including an intricate trio of bird and nest images.

“I need to dig deeper, down to the worms”

Zaccharie Charvolin

On the opposite side, a series of like-sized rectangular and square photographic montages, aesthetically arranged to group colors and tone, hang in a line. Some selections of Charvolin's poetry are posted nearby.

"I think you're a genius in that," Burnham-Ashman says as her grandson explains the display, adding that while their individual pieces differ in medium and style, "strangely enough I think it works."

"The definition of bridge is there's something that works or comes together," she said. "It has to do with life. As generations, we put things together and take things apart."

'Worms make the flowers grow'

Most of Charvolin's abstract pieces hanging in the gallery through July 27 were done last winter, with a common theme.

"When I look at them, they definitely represent something missing," he said. "Because I have a physical disability and use this chair, I can't do as much in the winter. There's more of a feeling of longing during that time."

Zaccharie Charvolin’s artwork will be show alongside his grandmother’s as part of “Generation Bridge” at the Cooperative Gallery in Binghamton.(Photo: Provided)

Charvolin says he used to "avoid looking at" those darker emotions, but now delves readily into addressing mental health, relationships and life's challenges through photography.

"You can't just live life by doing the fun things," he says. "I need to dig deeper, down to the worms."

In response, his grandmother says, "Worms make the flowers grow."

There are sad stories behind some of Burnham-Ashman's paintings too, she says, but she doesn't divulge them, doesn't want to sway a viewer.

The exception is a large painting in the back corner of the gallery, a portrait of her grandson she painted ahead of the exhibit, one she's simply titled "Zacc." One side of the painted face is alight, the other purposely shadowed.

Detail of "Seven Seals of Silence" by Ed Wilson. A memorial to President John F. Kennedy, the three-sided, granite and bronze monument is located in Kennedy Park, at the intersection of Chenango & Henry Street. The memorial was completed in 1969 and includes relief scenes depicting scenes of common human struggles. Kate Collins / Staff photo

Detail of "Seven Seals of Silence" by Ed Wilson. A memorial to President John F. Kennedy, the three-sided, granite and bronze monument is located in Kennedy Park, at the intersection of Chenango & Henry Street. The memorial was completed in 1969 and includes relief scenes depicting scenes of common human struggles. Kate Collins / Staff photo

Detail of "Cono Tronco" by Arnaldo Pomodoro is bronze and stainless steel, weighs nine thousand pounds and is sixteen feet tall. It was installed in the Government Plaza on Hawley St. in 1973. Kate Collins / Staff photo

Detail of "Seven Seals of Silence" by Ed Wilson. A memorial to President John F. Kennedy, the three-sided, granite and bronze monument is located in Kennedy Park, at the intersection of Chenango & Henry Street. The memorial was completed in 1969 and includes relief scenes depicting scenes of common human struggles. Kate Collins / Staff photo

Detail of the ACA Memorial, located on the corner of East Clinton & Front Street, Binghamton. The 2013 memorial was commissioned by the City of Binghamton to honor the victims of the 2009 American Civic Association Building mass shooting and was designed by BCK Architects. Kate Collins / Staff photo

The bronze statue of "Lady Justice" sits atop the dome of the Broome County Courthouse. The 1897 statue is credited to the architect of the building, Isaac G. Perry, but the actual artist is unknown. Unlike many other depictions of Lady Justice, the Broome County version lack a blindfold. Kate Collins / Staff photo

Detail of "Cono Tronco" by Arnaldo Pomodoro is bronze and stainless steel, weighs nine thousand pounds and is sixteen feet tall. It was installed in the Government Plaza on Hawley St. in 1973. Kate Collins / Staff photo

"Daniel S. Dickinson" by sculpture Allen George Newman is located in front of the Broome County Court House, 92 Court Street. The 1924 sculpture depicts Daniel S. Dickinson, a prominent New York politician who was elected the first president of the village of Binghamton in 1834. Kate Collins / Staff photo

Detail of "Seven Seals of Silence" by Ed Wilson. A memorial to President John F. Kennedy, the three-sided, granite and bronze monument is located in Kennedy Park, at the intersection of Chenango & Henry Street. The memorial was completed in 1969 and includes relief scenes depicting scenes of common human struggles. Kate Collins / Staff photo

"Daniel S. Dickinson" by sculpture Allen George Newman is located in front of the Broome County Court House, 92 Court Street. The 1924 sculpture depicts Daniel S. Dickinson, a prominent New York politician who was elected the first president of the village of Binghamton in 1834. Kate Collins / Staff photo

Detail of "Cono Tronco" by Arnaldo Pomodoro is bronze and stainless steel, weighs nine thousand pounds and is sixteen feet tall. It was installed in the Government Plaza on Hawley St. in 1973. Kate Collins / Staff photo

"Seven Seals of Silence" by Ed Wilson. A memorial to President John F. Kennedy, the three-sided, granite and bronze monument is located in Kennedy Park, at the intersection of Chenango & Henry Street. The memorial was completed in 1969 and includes relief scenes depicting scenes of common human struggles. Kate Collins / Staff photo

Detail of "Seven Seals of Silence" by Ed Wilson. A memorial to President John F. Kennedy, the three-sided, granite and bronze monument is located in Kennedy Park, at the intersection of Chenango & Henry Street. The memorial was completed in 1969 and includes relief scenes depicting scenes of common human struggles. Kate Collins / Staff photo

"Daniel S. Dickinson" by sculpture Allen George Newman is located in front of the Broome County Court House, 92 Court Street. The 1924 sculpture depicts Daniel S. Dickinson, a prominent New York politician who was elected the first president of the village of Binghamton in 1834. Kate Collins / Staff photo

"We go through dark times and good times," she says. "I think people can relate."

For this pair, who have shared many of those life experiences as family members, art is a way to express emotion and work through life's challenges, as well as a bridge between generations.

"Life is not easy," Burham-Ashman says, "There's something beautiful that comes from it."

In Stories to Share, reporter Katie Sullivan Borrelli spends time with the Southern Tier's most fascinating people. She's looking for stories that will make you laugh, cry or be inspired. Know of someone who should be featured? Email her at ksullivan@pressconnects.com, and follow her on Twitter @ByKatieSullivan.